Glass fountain
The glass fountain is a combined source Bremgartenwald , one of the recreation areas on the floor of the municipality of Bern and owned by the Bern civic community . The fountain is also a field name, a crossing point of forest trails, a meeting point and a place of pilgrimage for esoteric people .
location
The fountain is at 548 m above sea level. M. in the Neufeld district in the north of Bern.
The excess spring water flows through the glass trench to the Aare . The Bremgarten circuit , on which Formula 1 races were held until 1955 , led past the Glasbrunnen.
Water quality
The glass fountain water with approx. 32 French degrees of hardness is harder than the tap water from the nearby Länggass district, which has approx. 24 French degrees of hardness. A blind test by the Bernese cantonal laboratory with 67 people showed in 2010 that the taste of the water cannot be distinguished from Bernese tap water.
The glass fountain is considered a place of mystical power in esoteric circles. The supposedly mysterious powers of water are described on websites and the pleasant taste is praised. One of the claims made there is that the water comes from the Jungfrau massif and is therefore vital and poor in germs. This is incorrect: the catchment area of the spring lies in the Bremgartenwald, whereby groundwater inflows from the settlement area of Bümpliz- Ethlehem are to be expected.
The 1997 report "Hydrogeology west and north-west of Bern" by the Water and Energy Administration stated that the forest sources were unsuitable for public drinking water supply because of the many sources of danger in the catchment area. Due to the surrounding settlement areas, the glass well water has increased chloride , nitrate and sulphate contents .
Artistic adaptations
The glass fountain served as a motif for art and literature, for example for the novel Der Weg zum Glasbrunnen (1983) by Sam Jaun and the painting Waldlichtung (zum Glasbrunnen) by Hans Eggimann from 1922.
Origin of name
A fountain at the Glasbach in the Bremgartenwald has been known since the end of the Middle Ages. Its name could indicate the presence of a glassworks. Another explanation traces the name back to Magdalena Nägeli , the daughter of Hans Franz Nägeli ("Ritter Nägeli"), who lived in a castle in the Bremgartenwald for about thirty years. Magdalena was married three times and, according to legend, washed a drinking glass in the fountain after each of her weddings. These glasses symbolized the body, heart and mind. Hence the belief that the water in the glass fountain has a healing effect. In fact, there was never a castle in the Bremgarten Forest : Hans Franz Nägeli lived in Bremgarten Castle , which is not in the forest.
The storyteller Andrea Hofman connects the name with a ballad that is said to have been the source for the fairy tale “The Glass Fountain” in the fairy tale collection “Children's and Household Tales from Switzerland” by Otto Sutermeister . The ballad is about a virgin who lived in a castle in the Bremgartenwald and who conjured up a fairy fountain made of precious stones and gold clips. Hofman suspects that the ballad goes back to the time of the Celtic colonization of Bern. She sees in the “castle” a reference to the nearby area “Nägelischlössli”, where remains of Celtic settlements were found, and in the gold clasps a reference to Celtic jewelry, which would make the “precious stones” into glass beads that were common among the Celts.
literature
- Berchtold Weber: Historical-topographical lexicon of the city of Bern . Glass fountain (Places \ Sch \ Schweiz (CH) \ Bern (Canton) \ Bern (BE) \ G). Ed .: Burgerbibliothek Bern (= publications of the Berner Burgerbibliothek ). Bern 2016 ( archives-quickaccess.ch [accessed on February 4, 2018]).
Web links
- Documents on the glass fountain in the online archive catalog of the Burgerbibliothek Bern
- Burgergemeinde Bern media release: Glasbrunnen delivers flawless spring drinking water
- Website Glasbrunnen from the Zwirbel association
Individual evidence
- ↑ «10vor10» series water: Der Glasbrunnen ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Report from July 19, 2010 (Swiss television video portal)
- ↑ a b c Cantonal Laboratory Bern, Annual Report 2010 , page 42 (PDF; 5.7 MB). The text passages taken from the report are not protected by copyright.
- ^ Berchtold Weber: Historical-topographical lexicon of the city of Bern. Glass fountain (Places \ Sch \ Schweiz (CH) \ Bern (Canton) \ Bern (BE) \ G). Burgerbibliothek Bern , 2016, accessed on February 4, 2018 .
- ↑ La légende de Glasbrunnen ( Memento of the original of June 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Courrier de Berne 8/2010 (French)
- ↑ Otto Sutermeister: Der Glasbrunnen , in: Children's and Household Tales from Switzerland , HR Sauerländer, 2nd edition 1873, p. 155 ff.
- ↑ Andrea Hofman: Where did the stone glass fountain get its name from? , Berner Zeitung, July 22, 2016
Coordinates: 46 ° 57 ′ 45 " N , 7 ° 24 ′ 43" E ; CH1903: 597971 / 201261